Tuesday, June 06, 2006

View from the Iraqi left: Salam Ali's Party Line

One of the things nobody talks about is the role of the Iraqi Communist Party in stitching together the only genuinely non-sectarian, non-ethnic coalition in Iraq, the National Iraqi List, which got 9% of the vote last year, ranking 4th after the Shi'ite Iraqi United Alliance, the Kurdistan Alliance and the Sunni National Accord Front. This classic popular front now controls the Justice, Human Rights, Science and Technology and Communications ministries in the new national unity government.

If you can stand the Comintern-prose, it might be worth taking a look at an interview by a Tudeh (Iranian Communist) Party member and Salam Ali of the Iraqi Communist Party central committee (via Political Theory Daily).

The ICP effectively takes credit for the principles of the new government's programme, which he says "were worked out jointly with other political blocs, and are generally good." Naturally, the Party will be scrutinizing the actual performance in office. Most interesting for us is the idea that terrorism can best be combated by a combination of scheduled withdrawal of Coalition forces and elite accommodation of Sunni leaders.

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